


catechism

by orphan_account



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-02-10 08:09:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2017470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>noun; a series of questions and answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

(and you reach your hands into your chest and you feel the pumping movement under your palms and you think ah, yes, this is the place. here is where humanity throbs.)  
  


* * *

 

 

the form of the thing but not the thing itself.  to have the form of the Lilim but not to be one.  
  
(all language, the angel said, is fundamentally insincere, it is a representation of the thing and not the thing itself, and so nothing i tell you can ever be true. do you understand, child of lilith?  
  
the human wept and did not understand.)  
  
does it not strike the angel at this point in time in the constellation of points in time in which it has existed and will exist and continues presently to flicker in and out of existence too fast for the human eye to detect - does it not seem pitiful to be a piece of a piecemeal whole, whose only form of communication with itself is through lies?  
  
(o child. no wonder the serpent seduced you, the angel says, intending comfort, but the human goes on crying.)  
  
there are certain tesselations of noise however which cannot be used to communicate falsehood, only beauty, only the triumph of sound.  
  
and so the next time - the next go-around, perhaps the second or perhaps the millionth, for against infinitude what can be numbered? - the angel offers forth human music.  
  
and for a little while (confinement to a particular instance), within that period the human does not weep.  
  
and it was good, and the angel saw that it was good, and on the seventh day he departed happier for the mouthful. (the parcel of knowledge.  as they say in the corporeal plane - chew, and swallow.)  
  
and the universe ended, as it always would.  
  
a peculiar visibility of the soul, to the eyes of the kingdom of heaven: scattered points of light in space, unlike the galaxies and nebulae of beautiful dark matter.  bound forever by the field of absolute terror, the birthright of man, the curse upon the children of Lilith.  Lilith the beautiful, Lilith the monstrous, Lilith terrible to behold; and her progeny ugly crying things. never to embrace one another entirely, every consciousness separate and bound within an impenetrable wall.  
  
surely a curse, not a blessing, the angel thinks (and it is peculiar to think, a curling movement divergent from the natural state of existence which is to move in flux with the will of god, echoing and reverberating only the Word): to be alone.  
  
but perhaps not.  
  
(doubt: that old familiar sin, easily skirted with the courtesy of faith in the Word, but its kindred - uncertainty - merely springing forth as the evidence of the lower nature of the angel in respect to the omniscient Creator. a flourish, the motion of kneeling before the altar, hands clasped.)  
  
to watch and observe the work of the Creator; to learn the Will of Heaven through the Work of Heaven. the study of God.  
  
hallelujah, the angel mouths to the sky above.  at that discrete and particular instance of time the angel has been standing underwater on the surface of a remnant of what the inhabitants refer to as Old Tokyo for three days.    
  
it is content in the peace of the deep to wait for the correct time to clothe itself once more in flesh and bone and hair and sinew, in sackcloth not yet rent, and to walk with the Lilim. to walk once more among the Children.  
  
to repeat, over and over: hallelujah, birth and death and rebirth, the nature of the universe fundamentally a prayer offered up to God. coda. begin once more at the beginning.  
  
to peer closer at the human soul.  
  
in particular, of interest to the angel, the human who is called Ikari Shinji.  (the incongruous patronym, the seal of the father by whom he is abandoned in much the same way creation is abandoned and let to run its course without interference until the end.)    
  
pick apart beauty in the atomic structure of the chemical body, reverence through rapt scrutiny.  
  
a bylaw of this beautiful abnormality: in Life there must be names.  (legion, for there are many Lilim; in order to distinguish one from another, to know one thing from another thing, because all are not one.  because one is not the whole.)  
  
the angel (infinite, boundless) solidifies itself into Tabris then.  
  
by the Lilim themselves, the angel is referred to with a Lilim name: Nagisa Kaworu.  
  
(and did not God send the Son among the Lilim for much the same reason - to be mortal and to die?  surely a privilege, for lowly Tabris to assume the form that Christ once assumed. to wander the world among them, to assume a mortal mantle and die within it. to swallow the knowledge of Life and Death; a privilege to possess knowledge of both states, which are alike alien to the ceaseless and deathless existence of the Heavenly Host outside of this particular world.)  
  
if you cut us do we not bleed?    
  
Tabris laughs.  
  
(i) suppose (we) must.  
  
hallelujah, coda; and let the music repeat.  
  


* * *

  
  
the body is composed of meat and blood and bone in contained layers, minutely organized into component parts. it contains ingenious adaptations for the world to which Adam condemned it, tremendous mutability.  and yet the flesh, still, a prison for the spirit. a brief and fleeting cell, from ashes brought forth and to ashes returned.    
  
but to the human eye, perceiving the bodies of the (unknowable! forever unknowable!) others: beautiful.  
  
this too is a revelation.  
  
a delight in the geometries of the human body, the extension of the limbs, the movement of the form through space, the charm of physiognomy.  incredible to Tabris, who spends (a moment or several years) considering the articulation of (his?) his own hands.  first in movement, then at rest.  
  
o to live, to inhale the air of earth and breathe out; to ape the Breath of G-d. exhale, giving out warmth and water and air; inhale, and let the alveoli take in the dust and breath of stars.  (this too is a revelation: without a body Tabris cannot immerse himself/itself in the particulars, only recall them.)  
  
everywhere, life rushing onward.  
  
but Tabris moves slowly, savoring.  
  


* * *

  
  
here i am,  
  
where are you?


	2. Chapter 2

_hallelujah. hallelujah. hallelujah. hallelujah. hallelujah._

_coda._

_repeat._

 

* * *

 

 

there is nothing but what is.  
  
spend not a moment considering what is not, what might have been, what could be. cast aside what has been, what is no longer, what was never. these are mere hindrances to the now, which is the moment of your livid existence. here alone you move, breathe, circulate blood. here alone dwells your mind. banish the rest.  
  
like paring an apple.  
  
which will you devour?   
  
the fruit, or the core of seeds?  
  


* * *

  
  
to love is to be swallowed up by a perpetually-burning fire. to love is to vanish. to love is to be caught, like fabric snagging on barbed wire, on the life of another human being. to love is to declare your home a foundation of quicksand. to love is to be destroyed, over and over.  
  
tabris is not used to this; it is different, in heaven.  
  


* * *

  
  
_am i alive?_ Am I alive? Singular, I. _To be alive_ ; to exist. Yes, I am alive. I exist.  
  
What for?  
  
I raise my eyes toward heaven and the firmament is empty.  
  
 _what for?_ this endless field of black, punctuated by the ghosts of distant stars.  
  
in Your name - what is it for?  
  


* * *

  
  
Why were the Lilim given reason? It seems cruel, to Tabris (Kaworu). Why must they live aware of all they can never possess? (A punishment - for the first disobedience of man.) To know the ideal of the thing, and to suffer an existence devoid of ideals.  
  
It is apparent to him as an impartial observer that Shinji wants to be loved.   
  
A Lilim story: mortal Tantalus in Hades, for eternity unable to stoop and quench his thirst or reach up and pluck the fruit that would sate his hunger. Another Lilim story: immortal Prometheus, bound in chains to the mountain top. Every morning the eagle tears out his liver and every night it grows back. All for the theft of fire. All for the theft of a fruit from the forbidden tree.  
  
The wrath of G-d is great indeed.  
  
(It is our nature that damns us, our nature that humbles us before the Lord. Oh, that he had not set his canon 'gainst self-slaughter! We are forbidden rest.)  
  
To plant the desire for immaculate union in the human heart, and render it impossible with the field of Absolute Terror.  To lead mankind out of the cave and show him paradise, and then - send him back once more to his chains and darkness. To permit them a glimpse of what they miss, what they have always been missing - but only a glimpse.  
  
Pitiful.  
  
And yet - they persevere.  
  
Shinji goes on living.  
  
This time - and the next, and the next, and several times before, and again the one after - _Ikari Shinji goes on living._  
  
( _Interesting._ )  
  
Why?  
  


* * *

  
  
It is perhaps the third or perhaps the hundredth replay when it occurs to Tabris (Kaworu): although humanity is barred, forever, from unlocking the AT field - he is not.  
  
Even in his flesh and sackcloth, Kaworu (Tabris) cannot assume the punishment that was laid down for the Lilim alone.   
  
Even when bound in mortal coil he may manipulate the field as he (it) chooses.  
  
It is not beyond his capabilities to pull the barriers down. To extend a hand and part them, like a spur parts falling water.  
  
Such a realization is one that carries adjacent possibilities, unfurling into fresh paths of causality. He has seen with his mortal eyes all a mortal man can see.  
  
His vision need not be hobbled by human restrictions.  
  
He will examine Creation once more, then.  
  
Closer.  
  


* * *

  
  
Another day, another morning, another sunrise of gold and crimson brilliant ephemera.  
  
Tabris thinks: _Today is a good day to live/die/[perpetuality as a verb, infinitive case]._  
  
Kaworu thinks: _Today is a good day to meet you._


End file.
